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The latest developments in Russia’s war on Ukraine. All times EST.
10:13 p.m.: Senior U.S. officials are advising Ukraine to hold off on launching a major offensive against Russian forces until the latest supply of U.S. weaponry is in place and training has been provided, Reuters reported Friday, citing a senior Biden administration official.
The official, speaking to a small group of reporters on condition of anonymity, said the United States was holding fast to its decision not to provide Abrams tanks to Ukraine at this time, amid a controversy with Germany over tanks.
U.S. talks with Ukraine about any counter-offensive have been in the context of ensuring the Ukrainians devote enough time first to training on the latest weaponry provided by the United States, the official said.
The United States on Thursday announced it will send hundreds of armored vehicles to Ukraine for use in the fight.
Bad winter weather has hindered fighting on the front lines, although a cold snap that freezes and hardens the ground could pave the way for either side to launch an offensive with heavy equipment, Serhiy Haidai, governor of Ukraine's Luhansk region, said.
9:26 p.m.:
8:24 p.m.: Fighting has "sharply increased" in the southern Ukraine region of Zaporizhzhia, where the front has been largely stagnant for months, Agence France-Presse reported on Friday, citing a senior Moscow-installed official in the area.
Both Vladimir Rogov and the Russian army said Moscow's forces had seized the village of Lobkove, around 50 kilometers south of the Ukrainian-held regional capital, also called Zaporizhzhia.
The Ukrainian army said Friday that "more than 20 settlements" had been attacked.
Ukrainian military spokeswoman Natalia Gumenyuk told local media that fighting along the southern frontline was "difficult", including in Zaporizhzhia.
The Ukrainian head of the Zaporizhzhia region, Oleksandr Starukh, said his territory had been shelled a record number of times.
"Two hundred twenty-four shellings on 21 settlements in the last day alone," he said on social media.
Russia also said Friday that its forces had captured a hamlet south of the eastern town of Bakhmut, now the epicenter of fighting between Kyiv and Moscow's forces.
7:21 p.m.: Ukraine should not fixate on defending the city of Bakhmut at all costs and instead use a window of opportunity to prepare a major counteroffensive against Russian forces, a senior U.S. official said Friday, according to Agence France-Presse.
According to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, time favors Russia in Bakhmut, given its greater artillery resources and sheer numbers of troops.
Instead of expending so many soldiers and so much ammunition on a strategically unimportant target, the United States is advising Ukraine to take those forces out for refit and join U.S.-led training programs aimed at forming a more sophisticated and heavily armed force able to launch an offensive in the south.
The official noted that weapons for the counteroffensive were pouring into Ukraine, including several hundred armored vehicles this week, the kind of equipment that will be needed for a mobile offensive force.
6:33 p.m.: Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said on Friday Ukraine's Western allies would manage to form a coalition to provide Leopard tanks to the war-torn country.
"I am convinced the formation of this coalition will be a success," he told Agence France-Presse and other reporters on the sidelines the U.S.-led meeting at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
"This hope comes from the fact that defense ministers from 15 countries met on the sidelines of today's conference, and we discussed this matter," he added.
Poland and other countries such as Finland have their own stocks of the German-made Leopards yet they would need Germany's approval to send them.
5:49 p.m.: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday there was "no alternative" but for the West to give Ukraine heavy tanks, as Germany failed to say whether it would provide its much sought-after Leopards, Agence France-Presse reported.
Zelenskyy welcomed the progress made in recent days, with arms deliveries promised by the United States and a string of European nations.
"The partners are principled in their attitude — they will support Ukraine as much as is necessary for our victory," said Zelenskyy in his evening address.
"Yes, we will still have to fight for the supply of modern tanks, but every day we make it more obvious that there is no alternative, that a decision about tanks must be made."
After thanking those countries that had promised to deliver weapons, he added: "The only thing worth emphasizing in all this is the time, the delivery time.
5 p.m.: Russia's Wagner paramilitary group on Friday denied it was recruiting Serbs to fight in Ukraine, a day after activists filed criminal complaints against the organization in Belgrade, Reuters reported.
Among those named in the complaints were Russia's ambassador to Serbia, Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko, and Aleksandar Vulin, head of Serbia's state Security and Information Agency.
"I do not recruit Serbs," Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a statement, saying he had never head of either Botsan-Kharchenko or Vulin.
Earlier this week Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said Russia should halt its efforts to recruit Serbs to fight alongside Wagner forces. He said Russian websites and social media groups were publishing advertisements in the Serbian language in which the Wagner group called for volunteers.
4:27 p.m.: Bosnian war survivors are sharing survival tips with Ukraine, The Associated Press reported Friday.
Residents of eastern Bosnia’s city of Gorazde do not need imaginations to understand the suffering of Ukraine’s people. Three decades ago, they endured more than three years of extreme hardship as Bosnian Serbs pummeled their city with rockets and artillery from the surrounding hills.
The long siege during Bosnia’s 1992-95 interethnic war cut off Gorazde from access to electricity, food, medicine and the outside world. The people there found creative ways to keep lights on and heating working, survival tips they now are sharing with civilians plunged into darkness and cold by Russia’s relentless missile and drone attacks on Ukraine’s power grid.
Edin Culov, the Gorazde region’s governor, said friends and acquaintances who work for the European Union’s mission to Bosnia, in Sarajevo, contacted him late last year seeking information for a humanitarian effort to provide Ukrainians with an alternative source of electricity.
They specifically wanted any “drawings, photographs, video recordings or anything else” about the “miniature power plants” used in Gorazde back in the 1990s. The plants consisted of home-built paddlewheels mounted on wooden platforms with electrical generators. Locals set them up around a bridge in the Drina River, where barrels and ropes kept them afloat.
4 p.m.: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a controversial law late last year that expands government regulation of Ukrainian media. The new law has some critics calling it censorship. VOA’s Oleksii Kovalenko has the story.
3:10 p.m.: French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday proposed to boost defense spending by more than a third through 2030 and to “transform” France’s nuclear-armed military, to better face evolving threats and take into account the impact of Russia’s war in Ukraine, The Associated Press reported.
Macron announced a proposal for 413 billion euros (nearly $450 billion) in military spending for the period of 2024-2030, to ensure “our freedom, our security, our prosperity, our place in the world.”
That compares with spending of about 295 billion euros in a similar military plan for 2019-2025.
The money would notably go to modernizing France’s nuclear arsenal, boosting intelligence spending by 60%, doubling the number of military reservists, reinforcing cyberdefense and developing more remote-controlled weapons.
“Nuclear deterrence is an element that makes France different from other countries in Europe. We see anew, in analyzing the war in Ukraine, its vital importance,” he said in a speech to military personnel at an air base in Mont-de-Marsan in southwest France. France is the only member of the 27-nation European Union with nuclear weapons, and the bloc is still largely dependent on the U.S. and NATO for defense.
2:30 p.m.:
2:15 p.m.: "What are we, cannon fodder?" A unit of mobilized Russian soldiers went public with complaints about poor preparation and equipment for fighting in Ukraine, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported Friday.
A video appeared this week on Telegram and other Russian social-media networks: a group of more than two dozen men in masks and camouflage, standing in a snowy field and appealing for help.
"They were sent to the front line with only their naked asses, so to speak, to fight tanks with only machine guns," said Alyona Savochkina, whose husband, Viktor, was one of the soldiers appearing in the video. "Basic kit, grenades. All of them. They had no reinforcements. Nothing."
In an effort to reverse the military's flagging campaign to pound Ukraine into surrender, the Kremlin in September ordered the call-up of 300,000 men, many of them reservists. In the months prior, Russian authorities had conducted what experts called a "covert mobilization," recruiting volunteers with offers of high salaries.
But Russia's national logistics and recruiting infrastructure was largely unprepared to deal with the influx of troops who needed to be housed, clothed, equipped, and trained before being deployed.
Troops have complained, even before arriving on the battlefields of eastern Ukraine, of things like not getting paid, not having enough rations, or merely a lack of discipline and organization among commanders.
2:05 p.m.:
1:55 p.m.: A bipartisan delegation of three U.S. Senators visiting Kyiv blasted the delays around Western tank supplies to Ukraine on Friday, with one of them warning of an impending "major counter-offensive" by Russia, Reuters reported.
The delegation, composed of Republican Lindsey Graham as well as Democrats Richard Blumenthal and Sheldon Whitehouse, spoke to reporters after meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who asked for "investment, not charity," according to Graham.
Graham singled out Germany as he expressed his frustration over a lack of tanks sent to Kyiv by its Western allies, including the United States.
"I am tired of the shitshow of who is going to send tanks and when they are going to send them," he said. "To the Germans: send tanks to Ukraine, because they need the tanks. It is in your interest that Putin loses in Ukraine."
Blumenthal said Ukraine's Western allies must "stop the confusion and the chaotic debate about who sends tanks and when."
1:45 p.m.: The latest weapons package is "capable" enough for success, even without the requested tanks, Ukraine's allies said Friday, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the United States and other allies of Ukraine have assembled a new package of arms for Ukraine that they believe is sufficient for success once Kyiv's forces are trained on the equipment.
Austin told a news conference Friday at Ramstein U.S. Air Base in Germany that the package includes tanks, but not the German-made battle tanks that Ukraine has requested, or U.S. Abrams tanks.
The package that Austin and U.S. General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, outlined after a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group includes an array of howitzers, stingers, armored vehicles, and ammunition, along with "tank capacity" offered by Poland.
"This is a very, very capable package," Austin said. "If deployed properly, it will enable [Ukrainian forces] to be successful."
1:35 p.m.: John Kirby, National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications, announced the designation of the Wagner Group as a significant transnational criminal organization during a White House briefing Friday afternoon, according to VOA’s White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara, who shared more details on Twitter.
1:10 p.m.: The United States will impose additional sanctions next week against the Russian private military company, the Wagner Group, that U.S. officials say has been helping Russia's military in the Ukraine war, a senior administration official said Friday.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. Treasury Department will designate Wagner as a significant Transnational Criminal Organization, Reuters reported.
"In coordination with this designation, we will also impose additional sanctions next week against Wagner and its support network across multiple continents. These actions recognize the transcontinental threat that Wagner poses, including through its ongoing pattern of serious criminal activity," the official said.
Declaring Wagner a Transnational Criminal Organization under U.S. executive order 13581 freezes any U.S. assets of Wagner and prohibits Americans from providing funds, goods, or services to the group.
1:05 p.m.:
12:50 p.m.: European Union countries are working on a 10th package of sanctions to take effect next month against Russia for waging war against Ukraine, diplomatic sources told Reuters.
The EU's Russia hawks have already asked for new sanctions to curb the bloc's nuclear fuel cooperation with Moscow, ban imports of Russian diamonds and reduce trade with Kremlin's ally Belarus, among other measures.
On Friday, senior diplomats from three middle-way countries said the next round of sanctions should be ready around the anniversary on February 24 of Russia's invasion of its neighbor, an ex-Soviet republic that in recent years has sought to integrate with the West.
12:40 p.m.: Ukrainian officials have created a commission to investigate the helicopter crash in Brovary this week that killed 14 people, including all nine people on board, the Kyiv Independent reported.
“The commission created by the Cabinet Ministry has been instructed to submit its findings on the January 18 helicopter crash by February 18,” it reported, citing Cabinet Ministry representative Taras Melnychuk.
12:25 p.m.: A teenager and his friend ran into a burning kindergarten to save terrified children after a helicopter crashed into it on January 18. The authorities said 14 people were killed, including one child, along with the Ukrainian interior minister and other officials flying in the helicopter. Many children were injured. Current Time, a co-production of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and VOA, has this report.
12:10 p.m.: President of the International Committee of the Red Cross Mirjana Spoljaric concluded a two-day visit to Russia where she raised concerns related to the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and the conditions of prisoners of war, according to a statement released Friday by her office.
Spoljaric met with Russian officials and the head of the Russian Red Cross while there. This was her first trip to Moscow as ICRC president and followed a trip to Ukraine last month where she met with officials and communities affected by the war, the statement said.
Spoljaric said it was a priority to treat prisoners of war humanely and to allow them to receive regular ICRC visits. The ICRC said it only had limited access to prisoners of war so far, in order to “monitor conditions of detention and treatment, share much-awaited news with their families and provide essential assistance.” It said that thousands more prisoners also have the right to be visited.
“It is time to see meaningful progress,” the ICRC said in its statement. “Lives are at stake, and people on both sides of the international armed conflict are desperate for news of their loved ones.”
“That is why we are urgently seeking full, unimpeded, and regular access to all prisoners of war, wherever they are held,” the ICRC said.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov raised concerns about the potential abuse of Russian prisoners of war when he met with Spojaric on Friday, the Russian news agency TASS reported. "We expect the ICRC to go ahead with and step up efforts to solve the problem of visiting captured Russians and ensuring their rights," Lavrov said, according to TASS.
11:50 a.m.: The city of Bakhmut, Ukraine has been an epicenter of bombings for months and is now the sight of a fierce battle. As artillery rains down in the area, some residents rest underground, while a few others brave the violence to make a small amount of money in an outdoor market. VOA’s Heather Murdock reports.
11:35 a.m.: Top diplomats and former U.N. officials are seeking to fix the "Wild West" of peacemaking, Reuters reported Friday.
A group of diplomats, former statesmen and U.N. officials began seeking political backing this week for a peacemaking framework to shape new standards for resolving conflicts that they say can avoid past mistakes such as in Mali and Afghanistan.
There are more than 50 active conflicts in the world, from Democratic Republic of Congo to Ukraine, affecting some 2 billion people — a record for the post-World War Two period.
But the framework's proponents, who have just completed a two-year consultation period in dozens of countries, say today's peace brokers are applying the wrong strategy.
U.S. deputy permanent representative Ben Moeling made broadly supportive remarks at a Geneva meeting, saying innovation in warfare tactics and technology must be accompanied by "the same levels of creativity, resources and commitment" in peacemaking.
11:20 a.m.: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan repeated his offer to mediate between Russia and Ukraine in a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday, the Turkish presidency said.
Erdogan also offered his condolences for those who died in a helicopter crash in Ukraine on Wednesday, it said.
10:30 a.m.: U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Army General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, held a news conference following the Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting at Ramstein Air Base in Germany on Friday.
10:10 a.m.: Poland’s prime minister and a senior security official say that foreign divers rescued from near a key port where they had no authorization to be posed no threat to vital infrastructure or public safety, The Associated Press reported Friday.
Premier Mateusz Morawiecki made the statement late Thursday after receiving a report on the incident near an oil port in the Gulf of Gdansk which had raised security concerns given the high tensions with Russia over energy deliveries. The divers had Spanish identity documents.
“Based on what the (security) services know, I can say that the incident cannot be seen as an attempted attack on the country’s critical infrastructure,” Morawiecki said during a meeting with young people at his office.
A high official for national security, Stanislaw Zaryn, also said that the actions of the “Spanish citizens who were rescued on the Baltic Sea posed no threat to Poland’s security or to the security of critical infrastructure” and that the divers “committed no crime on Poland’s territory.”
According to Polish media, the divers were rescued early Sunday after they sent a distress message when their unregistered small boat malfunctioned in stormy weather. They were equipped with professional diving gear and said they were looking for amber, but none was found in the boat. They had no permission to dive in the gulf.
9:55 a.m.: The effects of the war in Ukraine are extending beyond Moscow and Kyiv, and may be impacting not only people but also wildlife. VOA's Bilal Hussain reports from Srinagar, in Indian-administered Kashmir.
9:40 a.m.: A group of 15 Ukrainian deminers on Friday wrapped up a week of training in Cambodia, where experts who have cleared minefields from one of the world’s most contaminated countries shared their expertise with the relative newcomers to the dangerous job, The Associated Press reported.
Cambodia is still strewn with mines from three decades of war and internal conflicts that ended in 1998, while the problem in Ukraine is a new one since the Russian invasion last year.
Ukrainian deminer Stanislav Kulykiusky told reporters that his team was grateful for the training, saying that at home already 64 deminers had been injured and 13 killed in the line of duty. “It is a very difficult situation,” he said.
The NGO Landmine Monitor in its 2022 report listed both Cambodia and Ukraine among the nine countries with “massive” mine contamination, meaning they had more than 100 square kilometers (38.6 square miles) of uncleared fields.
Kulykiusky said that the main challenge for Ukrainian deminers was the scale of the job, but that it was critical to ensure all mines are removed before people return to villages and farms. “This is a precondition of the recovery,” he said.
Cambodian deminers are among the world’s most experienced, and several thousand have been sent in the past decade under U.N. auspices to work in Africa and the Middle East.
9:25 a.m.: “A third temporary facility to process liquified natural gas (LNG) has docked in the northern industrial port of Brunsbüttel,” DW News reported Friday. “Germany has been sourcing alternative energy supplies to wean itself off Russian gas,” it said.
9:15 a.m.: It did not appear, at least early in the meeting, that the tank debate roiling the coalition of defense leaders gathered at Ramstein Air Base in Germany was resolved, but Germany’s new defense minister suggested the issue was inching forward, The Associated Press reported.
Germany has so far resisted mounting pressure to quickly supply Leopard 2 tanks to Kyiv, or at least clear the way for other countries, such as Poland, to deliver the German-made Leopards from their own stocks.
But, speaking to reporters outside the conference hall at midday, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that while there was no decision yet on whether to send the Leopard tanks, “we will make our decisions as soon as possible.”
He said he has ordered the ministry to look into the tank stocks Germany has so he can be prepared for a possible green light and be able to “act immediately.” Pistorius added that Germany will “balance all the pros and contras before we decide things like that just like that. … I am very sure that there will be a decision in the short term but … I don’t know how the decision will look.”
8:40 a.m.: A defiant Germany denied blocking Leopard tank deliveries to Ukraine Friday, Reuters reported.
Germany's Defense Minister Boris Pistorius denied that Berlin was unilaterally blocking the delivery of Leopard main battle tanks to Ukraine but said the government was ready to move quickly on the issue if there was consensus among allies.
Speaking to reporters at a meeting of NATO and defense leaders at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany, Pistorius denied that Berlin was standing in the way of a united coalition behind sending the tanks.
"There are good reasons for the deliveries and there are good reasons against, and in view of the entire situation of a war that has been ongoing for almost one year, all pros and cons must be weighed very carefully," he said, without elaborating on the reasons.
Pressure has been building on Berlin to provide tanks to Kyiv that Ukraine sees as key in the war against Russia. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin earlier urged allies to dig deeper to support Ukraine.
Leopard tanks are seen as especially suitable for Ukraine as they are widely in use, meaning several countries could each chip in some of their tanks to support Ukraine.
8:15 a.m.: NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday that countries backing Ukraine needed to focus not only on sending new weapons to Kyiv, but looking at ammunition for older systems and helping maintain them, Reuters reported.
NATO and defense leaders from about 50 countries are meeting at Ramstein Air Base, the latest arms-pledging conference since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly 11 months ago.
"We need also to remember that we need to not only focus on new platforms, but also to ensure that all the platforms which are already there can function as they should," Stoltenberg told Reuters on the sidelines of the meeting.
"We need ammunition. We need a spare parts. We need maintenance and we training," he said.
The United States announced an additional $2.5 billion in military aid for Ukraine on Thursday, a package which will include more armored vehicles and ammunition.
7:50 a.m.:
7:25 a.m.: Russia said on Friday that relations with the United States were at an all-time low, dismissing the idea the two sides could turn things around halfway through U.S. President Joe Biden's term in office, Reuters reported.
"Bilateral relations are probably at their lowest point historically, unfortunately," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
"There is no hope for improvement in the foreseeable future."
Already poor U.S.-Russia ties became even more strained last year when Russia invaded Ukraine, prompting Washington and its allies to respond with a barrage of sanctions against Russia's economy.
The United States has also provided Kyiv with substantial economic and military support, drawing condemnation from Russian officials who have accused Washington of playing a direct role in the conflict.
While there have been occasional diplomatic successes, including prisoner swaps involving U.S. Marine veteran Trevor Reed and basketball star Brittney Griner, high-level contact has been scarce.
7:10 a.m.:
6:55 a.m.: Russia's Defence Ministry said on Friday that its forces had taken control of Klishchiivka, a settlement south of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region.
Last week, Russian forces captured Soledar to the northeast of Bakhmut - an advance that defence analysts said could help them put pressure on the larger town.
Klishchiivka, which had a pre-war population of around 400 people, was captured with the help of aerial support, the ministry said.
The village is around six miles (nine km) south of Bakhmut, where units of Russia's Wagner private militia have been locked for months in a battle of attrition with Ukrainian forces.
Both Wagner and a Russian proxy militia based in Ukraine's Donetsk province had already claimed to have taken Klishchiivka. Reuters could not independently confirm battlefield events.
6:40 a.m.:
6:30 a.m.: A U.N. spokesperson said a three-truck convoy brought aid to around 800 people close to Soledar in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region on Friday, the first such delivery to the area by the global body as it seeks to step up front-line aid in the war, Reuters reported.
The supplies of food, water, hygiene and medicines were being offloaded on Friday morning in areas controlled by the Ukrainian government, Jens Laerke from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.
He did not give an exact location, in an area that has been subject to intense fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces, but said the vehicles departed from Dnipro. "People there are in dire need of aid so we are indeed happy this convoy has reached (them)," Laerke added.
He gave no details of how OCHA was able to ensure the safety of the U.N. convoy, saying only that the parties to the conflict were notified in advance. He said OCHA was seeking to increase the number of aid convoys close to the frontlines and that more were expected in the days ahead.
6:15 a.m.: Defense leaders gathered at Ramstein Air Base in Germany heard an impassioned plea for more aid Friday from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as they struggled to resolve ongoing dissent over who will provide battle tanks and other military aid to his embattled country, The Associated Press reported.
“This is a crucial moment. Russia is regrouping, recruiting and trying to re-equip,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned as the meeting opened.
Zelenskyy, speaking live via video link, told the gathering that “terror does not allow for discussion.” He said “the war started by Russia does not allow delays.”
Calling it a decisive moment for Ukraine and a “decisive decade for the world,” Austin said the group’s presence in Germany signaled their unity and commitment to continue supporting Ukraine. “We need to keep up our momentum and our resolve. We need to dig even deeper,” Austin told the gathering of as many as 50 defense leaders who were attending in person and by video.
A Kremlin spokesman said the deployment of Western tanks would trigger “unambiguously negative” consequences. “All these tanks will require both maintenance and repairs, and so on, so (sending them) will add to Ukraine’s problems, but will not change anything with regard to the Russian side achieving its goals,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said during a media briefing Friday.
Austin and U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were expected to discuss the latest massive package of aid the U.S. is sending, which totals $2.5 billion and includes Stryker armored vehicles for the first time. But broader hesitation over sending tanks to Ukraine has roiled the coalition. Germany faces mounting pressure to supply Leopard 2 tanks to Kyiv, or at least clear the way for other countries, such as Poland, to deliver the German-made Leopards from their own stocks.
5:30 a.m.: Finland has announced a new package of more than 400 million euros ($434 million) in military aid for Ukraine, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported Friday.
The pledge triples the total value of Finnish defense aid to Ukraine to 590 million euros, the Defense Ministry said in a statement on January 20.
A ministry spokesperson said the package does not include Leopard 2 tanks. Germany faces growing pressure to supply Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine or at least give permission to other allies such as Poland to deliver the German-made tanks from their own stock.
5:09 a.m.: Moldova has asked allies to strengthen its air defense capabilities as war rages in neighboring Ukraine, although what the country calls Russian efforts to destabilize it have so far failed, President Maia Sandu said Thursday.
"We have requested air surveillance and defense systems," Sandu told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "We understand Ukraine is a priority" but we also hope to receive some, she said.
To Ukraine's west, fellow former Soviet republic Moldova has a tiny defense budget and has long had tense relations with Moscow. Russia has troops and peacekeepers based in Transdniestria, a breakaway statelet of Moldova that has survived for three decades with the Kremlin's support.
Moldova's pro-Western government has strongly backed Kyiv since the Russian invasion and submitted a formal request to join the European Union just a week after Russian troops rolled into Ukraine last February.
Sandu said the country's military budget had been increased and the government was talking to the EU about air defense systems, with talks also on a bilateral basis with allies. She said she felt the country was safe given Ukraine's resistance to Russia.
4:21 a.m.: The Institute for the Study of War, a U.S. think tank, said in its latest Ukraine assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin is increasingly siding with the enemies of Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin, likely in an ongoing effort to reduce Prigozhin’s influence in Russia.
Ukrainian forces reportedly continued counteroffensive operations near Svatove, the assessment said, and Russian forces conducted limited counterattacks near Kreminna.
4:17 a.m.:
3:11 a.m.: Russian energy giant Gazprom will ship 25.1 million cubic meters of gas to Europe via Ukraine on Thursday, Reuters reported, citing Gazprom on Thursday.
Russian gas exports to Europe via pipelines plummeted to a post-Soviet low in 2022 as deliveries to its largest customer plunged because of the conflict in Ukraine and suspected sabotage that damaged a major pipeline.
Gazprom had reduced flows to 32.6 mcm via the Sudzha metering point on Tuesday, down almost 8% from the previous several days.
The company had shipped gas via Ukraine at between 35.4 mcm and 35.5 mcm over Jan. 6-16, having exported more than 40 mcm per day for most of the second half of last year and the first three days of 2023.
Ukraine's state gas transit company said that Russian gas nominations, or requests from customers, were seen at 35.2 mcm via the Sudzha metering point Friday, signaling a possible partial recovery in supplies.
2:10 a.m.: The head of U.S. asset management firm BlackRock said Thursday that Western investors will be "flooding" Ukraine postwar and the country could become "a beacon to the rest of the world of the power of capitalism," Agence France-Presse reported.
Larry Fink, one of the world's most influential investors, told a Ukraine-themed event in Davos that he estimated the country would need $750 billion in reconstruction funds and aid "if the war stopped relatively soon."
"I do believe, emotionally, those who truly believe in a capitalistic system will be flooding Ukraine with capital," Fink added.
"And I'm not talking about philanthropy. There's going to be a lot of philanthropy. I'm truly talking about if we can rebuild Ukraine, it can be a beacon to the rest of the world of the power of capitalism," he said.
He said he had spoken to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to express his firm's interest in taking part in reconstruction efforts.
Ukraine's reconstruction needs were estimated at $349 billion by the World Bank in September, but a bank official has said the figure will be revised up this year.
1 a.m.: The Joint Coordination Center reports that four vessels left Ukrainian ports Thursday carrying a total of 229,749 metric tons of grain and other food products under the Black Sea Grain Initiative.
And four more transited through the maritime humanitarian corridor under the Black Sea Grain Initiative heading toward the Ukrainian ports of Yuzhny, Odesa, and Chornomorsk.
Currently, 38 vessels are waiting for inspection: 10 of them waiting to move into Ukrainian ports and 28 loaded with cargo waiting to sail to their global destinations.
12:02 a.m.: Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy said his government was expecting "strong decisions" from defense leaders of NATO and other countries meeting on Friday to discuss boosting Ukraine's ability to confront Russian forces with modern battle tanks, Reuters reported.
The meeting at Ramstein Air Base in Germany is where future weapons supplies will be discussed, particularly of Germany's Leopard 2 tanks used by armies across Europe.
Berlin has veto power over any decision to export the tanks, and Chancellor Olaf Scholz's government has appeared reluctant so far to authorize that for fear of provoking Russia.
Some allies say Berlin's concern is misplaced, with Russia fully committed to war, while Moscow has repeatedly said Western weapons transfers would prolong the conflict and increase suffering in Ukraine.
Ukraine and Russia have both relied primarily on Soviet-era T-72 tanks, which have been destroyed in their hundreds during the war that Russian President Vladimir Putin started last Feb. 24.
Some information in this report came from Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
